


First Signs of Madness

by PurpleMoon3



Series: dresden_kink fills [9]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Gen, Harry Talks to Himself, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kink Meme, broship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 16:14:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9449870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Harry and some frenemies are trapped with the enemy closing in.  Under pressure, Harry starts talking to himself, a cycle Thomas is unfortunately familiar with.  It's going to be so much harder protecting his brother if everyone knows those rumors of crazy are actually true.





	1. Out of the Closet

**Author's Note:**

> Fill to [this](http://dresden-kink.dreamwidth.org/2675.html?thread=2710387#cmt2710387) prompt on the kinkmeme.

I lived with my brother for a little over a year. The apartment was cramped to my delicate sensibilities, but surprisingly homey and clean, and in that time I got to know the honorable half-crazed pyromaniac by more than reputation and what highly paid not-stalkers could pick up. For instance: Harry Dresden has an alarming love affair with pop culture. The fact I've seen him spend his lunch breaks leaning against a lamp post watching the scrolling text of televisions through a shop window does not cover it. Everyone does _that_. What I can't figure out is how he knows what 4chan, eBay, or Long Cat is when every computer dies within two minutes of exposure to him.  
  
Aside from the fact he probably has some sort of psychological fear about being seen cleaning -seriously, I've yet to figure out how he keeps the place so damn neat, and I've never actually seen him do it- Harry talks to himself. Usually it isn't very loud, but as I mentioned earlier his little underground bunker is small and my hearing is a bit more sensitive then your average human. Harry talks to himself. A lot. He also tends to verbally abuse himself.   
  
But, I figure, having an actual nice fatherly father die on you has got to be troubling, as well as being bounced around, and then stuck with another father figure that results in getting black listed by the White Council is going to leave some scars. My little brother is entitled to a few neuroses, and seeing as he keeps them mostly under-wraps I didn't worry so much about anyone finding out and exploiting them. For example, I know my brother dislikes Marcone, but if the guy ever got it into his head to broach a subject with an offering of donuts in tow Harry would be a lot more willing to cooperate. Or at least listen. I've lost count of how many times I distracted him from my own activities with a well placed burger.  
  
Anyway, I love my brother, but he's a little kooky. More than usual for wizards. It was best for everyone if these little idiosyncrasies of his were to remain uncommon knowledge.   
  
So, I think it is a little understandable that I started to become concerned when Harry began pacing the far wall of the basement we were all stuck in. I knew that pace. He ran a hand through his hair, nails white, and his shoulders quivered the tiniest fraction that was barely detectable even to me. "Fuck, Harry. You are so fucked."  
  
Shit. Shit on a stick with a side of lima beans. I raised a well manicured hand and reached for him, in what I'm sure looked like a comforting gesture and not the desperate bid for attention that it was.

"Harry?" They still thought we were together -like _together_ together- and I would be just fine with that, but Harry didn't see me. He was in one of his moods. I winced, because if that year of close quarters had taught me anything it was that Harry wouldn't be snapping out of his little brainstorming session until he had a plan of action no matter how stupid or crazy that plan sounded. I should know. I've heard him come up with them, and then _follow through_. When you're the one driving the get-away car, roguish smiles are not enough: the things I do for family.   
  
"Okay. Let's review. You've got a pack of pissed off, hungry baddies outside blocking the door, and no staff or rod. Big-Boobs has those." I had to take a moment to marvel at my brother's penchant for giving terrible nicknames to... well... everything. I watched as everyone else trapped with us, particularly Marcone, slowly started to gravitate toward the spectacle that is my brother. Harry snorted. "Brilliant move, that.  
  
"Shut up! I was preoccupied with the fey-mold that was trying to eat through my skin.  
  
"And it had nothing to do with her huge tracks of land?  
  
"Dammit, Harry, focus." He was pacing again, though this time he tapped the wall at irregular intervals. Murphy frowned, and I suddenly wished she still had her gun so I could shoot myself. This was the world's slowest train-wreck.  
  
"Harry," the cop asked. "Who are you talking to?"  
  
Harry yelled, arms flying out, and she jumped back. "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP! Marcone is not a meat shield, I'm not going to try calling up tantric magic with Murphy, and we don't have any grass skirts for a hula." He paused, tilting his head before rapidly shaking it. "Though it would have been the perfect distraction, I'll admit."  
  
And we were back to muttering insults at ourselves. Murphy marched over to me, hands on her hips, and if we were anywhere else I might have been compelled to make a comment. "What. is. wrong. with. him."  
  
Why did they think I would know? The fact that there was a sizable delay in my answer is probably what tipped her off to the dishonesty. "The, uh, powder. Magic. Couldn't counter all the effects and so... he's just thinking out loud. It'll wear off."  
  
She just stared at me. Hendricks was staring at Harry, tense, as if ready to pounce on the wizard if he so much as breathed in the mafia boss' direction. Marcone was alternating between me and Harry, who had stopped pacing and was now staring off into space. Which meant he was coming down. Back to reality. Which meant he had a plan.   
  
Crap.  
  
"Ooh!" Harry breathed, eyes shining with way too much enthusiasm for a guy who not ten minutes ago nearly had his skin melted off. "Hey, Johnny, got a knife?"  
  
"Would this be in response to your plans to turn your revolver into a temporary magical focus?"  
  
Harry stiffened, and the quizzical look on his face was so priceless my teeth ached. "How'd you figure that out?" He then scowled, missing the _look_ Marcone gave him. A look full of calculations and other things that set the hairs on the back of my neck to attention.  
  
Marcone, it happens, did have a knife just perfect for carving into the wood, and another for scratching metal. Harry worked, humming, and I think it was something by Franz Ferdinand. The Fallen. It wasn't pretty, and Harry was going to be in the market for a new gun after this, but twenty minutes later Harry pulled the trigger on his new focus and melted us an escape through the wall. All three feet deep of it.  
  
But I couldn't escape the fact that my brother's best friend and best frenemy now knew about his eccentricities. Shit. Who am I kidding? Harry doesn't have enough money to be eccentric. My brother is as mad as a bag of cats. It's to be expected with all he's been through. Mind magic: it fucks you up, and Harry has had beings poking at his psyche since he was 16, possibly before. From well and not-so-well meaning wizards to fairy nobles and fallen angels trying to convince him to join the dark side- all that tampering, light as it may be on an individual basis, adds up.   
  
But he's my brother. Family.   
  
I'll stop by the pastry shop on the way over to his place in the morning. I'm going to need a little persuasion to convince Harry to move in with me for his own protection.


	2. The Missing Piece

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marcone considers the situation.

It is embarrassingly obvious in hindsight. I, who have peered into the very soul of Dresden, failed to see the rash, impulsive behavior for what it was. Is. The wizard's actions were dictated not merely by a bull-headed stubbornness, or a contrary nature cultivated through years of distrust tempered by some inexplicable sense of justice. Had that been the case I likely would have caught Dresden years ago when his sense of self-preservation kicked in. Instead, even under threat of death by lycanthrope, he denied me with a sort of gleeful desperation.  
  
I should have remembered - I make it a point to note such things. Knowing your allies is just as important as knowing your enemies.- but the series of events that followed our little tete-a-tete to allow Dresden's escape had convinced me it had been some sort of clever, wizard-y plan. That Dresden had been acting: hiding his true level of weakness while waiting for the opportune moment.  
  
But Dresden has no survival instinct. If anything, he possesses a half acknowledged death wish. The first time I met him, and tricked him into meeting my gaze, I hadn't been prepared to truly understand what it meant. While I've no doubt Dresden saw something that both disturbed and, on some level, comforted him what I glimpsed in turn was a confusing mishmash that briefly broke through my own hard won composure.  
  
Dresden's soul took on the form of a blackened, burnt tomb. A grinning skeleton lay out on a rich violet altar cloth, arms resting by its side, dressed in a black and white suit reminiscent of a stage magician's garb. Hidden behind the skeleton, couched and clutching at an empty pant leg, was a younger Dresden. He wasn't that much younger, a teenager on the cusp of full adulthood, but through the ragged remains of clothing I could see skin covered in scars. I walked closer -though "walked" probably isn't the best verb to describe the movement- and he smiled dreamily up at me while bloody tears tracked down his cheeks. Broken manacles dangled from unhealthily thin wrists, and their chains created an almost musical tinkle when dragged against the burnt, cracked stone.  
  
"You shouldn't be here." I turned, instinctively going for weapons that would do no good. Not in this place. "Here, there be dragons."  
  
The one who had spoken was also Dresden, and though this one was closer in age to the Harry I knew he wore black leathers with a handkerchief tied loosely around his neck. He stroked a carefully trimmed goatee with one hand as he watched me, a smirk on his lips. The shadows around us pulsed, alive, though what was lurking in that smoky domain I cannot say other than that it was too massive for mortal comprehension.  
  
I had not fully understood then the importance or the implications of that which I had witnessed. Now, watching Dresden pace along the small basement we had taken refuge in, I did. Raith moved closer to the wizard, reaching, with a distant longing in his eyes. Love, perhaps? Lust? Dresden ignored him, and the heated, whispered words reached my own pricked ears. _"Dammit, Harry. You were taught better than this. You know better than this, fucking useless idiot. Justin was right. Should have died with mom..."_  
  
And with that continuing, and enlightening, monologue everything fell into place. Why my efforts to lure the powerful man to my side failed so spectacularly became clear. I had always approached, after the first attempt at any rate, Dresden as one would an untamed bear: cautiously, and with gratuitous firepower in reserve. My plans revolved around a sane, if emotional, man.  
  
But Dresden was not sane. It was no wonder my entreaties failed time and again.  
  
As Dresden's thought process unfolded, littered with unsettling self recriminations and loathing, my gaze drifted to Lt. Murphy and Raith. From his reactions to her questions he had known of Dresden's condition, and sought to hide it. Purportedly Dresden's lover, Thomas Raith is the only surviving Prince of the White Court which suggested he excelled in manipulation and subterfuge. His previous lover, Justine, had been a regular meal until circumstances resulted in Raith draining her almost to death. Before Thomas, the girl had been a frequent, if reluctant, visitor to St. Claire's Psychiatric. Somehow, being with the vampire had stabilized her in ways medication and therapists could not.  
  
Dresden's rate of property damage had increased significantly since Raith had moved out.  
  
The vampire hovered close to Dresden as the man worked at carving miniscule runes into his old army revolver: the bullets had run out during our retreat, but the wizard did not need them for what he had planned. It was quite an ambitious plan. Raith placed a pale hand on Dresden's shoulder, a proprietary gesture, and glared at me through opaque silver eyes. The Wizard didn't seem to notice the action, absorbed as he was in his work, and I didn't bother hiding my own feelings on the matter. I offered a simple smile to the man.  
  
I knew now, for certain, and Raith knew I knew. He was not pleased. Hendricks, ever vigilant, tensed beside me eying them both. As soon as I could free up the time, Raith and I would be having a nice, long chat. Then I could revise my plans accordingly, with or without the White Prince's assistance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. As I was editing this to post I realized I had a ridiculous love affair with dashes in 2011. Weird.


End file.
